Related Events

College students from two Grand Rapids institutions have cleaned up in nationwide business competitions. Last month Davenport University students took numerous awards in Texas, and two Grand Valley State University students took top honors in Philadelphia.

Davenport sent 26 students to the Business Professionals of America’s 43rd National Leadership Conference in Dallas. BPA is a career and technical student organization that helps develop leadership, academic and technological skills.

The Davenport students won nine first-place awards, nine second-place awards and eight third-place awards. All 26 students placed in the top 10 nationally in at least one category. The students swept several categories, taking first, second and third place in network design, computer security, extemporaneous speech and video production.

Two students from the GVSU Seidman College of Business took top honors in SAP AG Inc.'s national Marketing Innovator 2009 competition. They were awarded $3,000 each in scholarships. Elements of their plan will be implemented by SAP, the world’s largest enterprise software company.

The students were David Herrema of Holland and Eric Koch of St. Joseph. Koch is an accounting and management information systems major, and Herrema is a management information systems major. Last year, the pair won $10,000 each in scholarships from SAP.

In the contest, teams of students compete to create a marketing campaign for SAP. To be successful, the team needed to understand SAP as a company as well as the market. Contest entries also include a business plan.

Restricted Content

About GRBJ

Since 1983, the Grand Rapids Business Journal has been West Michigan's primary and most-trusted source of local business news. The weekly print edition of the Business Journal, a must-read for the area’s top decision-makers, is known as the business newspaper of metro Grand Rapids, Holland, Muskegon and all of West Michigan.

grbj.com provides the same trusted and objective business reporting that the Business Journal is known for -- plus real-time original content, timely enewsletters/alerts, exclusive blogs and more. Business Journal subscribers receive the weekly print edition, including bonus publications like the annual Book of Lists, and also complete access to all content on grbj.com.

The Grand Rapids Business Journal is published by Gemini Publications.